One by one they crawled, or ran half crouched, from their original places of safety to the angle where a great rock, jutting out from the side of the glen in which they had camped, offered shelter for all. There they stood, with ready guns, waiting for the next move in the grim game.
Snake had remained in consultation with Yellin' Kid until now, and then, seeing his force waiting for him, the veteran cowboy made a dash to join them.
I call it a dash, but Snake was not foolhardy, and the advice he gave he took himself. Advantaging himself of every natural cover, the leader of the second party dodged this way and that, stooping over half double, until he was within ten feet of the shelter. Then since along the route where he came from, there was an open, unprotected space, he tried to cross this in two jumps.
He succeeded, but as he landed, and half fell amid his comrades, a gun barked, somewhere out in the ambush, and by the convulsive movement of his body Snake gave evidence of having been hit.
"Are you hurt?" cried Bud, as he caught the reeling cowboy.
"Guess not—much!" grunted Snake, but his voice was labored.
"Where was it?" snapped out one of the cowboys. "Let's have a look."
"Here!" Snake placed his hand over his heart. The boy ranchers gasped—they knew what it meant to lose one of their leaders at a time like this.
In an instant Snake's coat was flung open, and his shirt half torn to expose his chest. And then there fell out, from next his skin on which it had made an ugly bruise, a partly flattened bullet.
"Whew!" whistled Nort.